Extract HTML table for UITableView

Question

I am trying to make a UITableView based application for the iPhone. I have done this before by extracting data from RSS feeds, but for this application I am trying to use data from a webpage. The data is in a web table format (http://www.roblox.com/Forum/Default.aspx), and has different hierarchies because it is a forum.

How should I go about parsing this data? Is there a framework I can use?

Once again, the data I would like to use is the table (forum) at this website - http://www.roblox.com/Forum/Default.aspx.

Thanks!

Answer 1

I really recommend Hpple. It's a really good XML/HTML parser.

To use it, you'll need to add ${SDKROOT}/usr/include/libxml2 in "Header Search Path", in your project option and add -lxml2 to "Other Linker Flag".

Then, drag it to your code: TFHpple.h, TFHpple.m, TFHppleElement.h, TFHppleElement.m, XPathQuery.h, XPathQuery.m.

In the code add:

NSData *htmlData = [[NSString stringWithContentsOfURL:[NSURL URLWithString: @"http://www.roblox.com/Forum/Default.aspx"]] dataUsingEncoding:NSUTF8StringEncoding];

TFHpple *xpathParser = [[TFHpple alloc] initWithHTMLData:htmlData];
NSArray *elements  = [xpathParser searchWithXPathQuery:@"//a[@class='forumTitle']"];

for(int i = 0; i < [elements count]; i++) {
    TFHppleElement *element = [elements objectAtIndex:i];
    NSString *string = [element content];
    NSLog(@"%@", string);
}

[xpathParser release];
[htmlData release];

We made a loop in every a with class = forumTitle with TFHppleElement and NSLog it.

To understand more, take a look at XPath Syntax. Also check a tutorial.

Now you ask: Why use Hpple? It's faster, more easy to use and with awesome tutorials.

Hope it help!